In Bipartisan Pleas, Experts Urge Trump to Save Nuclear Treaty With Russia, NYT, By Rick Gladstone, Nov. 8, 2018 Alarmed at what they see as disintegrating curbs on nuclear weapons, a bipartisan array of American nonproliferation experts has urged President Trump to salvage a Cold War-era treaty with Russia that he has vowed to scrap.

In letters sent to the White House this week that were seen by The New York Times, the experts said the pact, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, had reduced the risk of nuclear war.

Despite the treaty’s flaws, they said, the United States should work to fix the accord, not walk away from it.

“The INF Treaty has prevented the unchecked deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe,” stated one of the letters, sent Wednesday to the White House. It was signed by more than a dozen prominent figures in arms control, including former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and former Senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn.

Another letter, dated Tuesday and sent by the American College of National Security Leaders, a group of former high-level military officers, said: “The INF Treaty is a bedrock to our current arms control regime and serves rather than hampers American interests.”

There was no immediate comment from the Trump administration on the letters.

The treaty’s fate may come up this weekend if Mr. Trump sees President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during a memorial event in France celebrating the centennial of the end of World War I. But there have been conflicting accounts from the White House and the Kremlin on whether the two will even meet.

……….In the letter signed by Mr. Shultz and others, the arms control experts recognized what they called Russia’s noncompliance with the treaty. But rather than move to terminate it, they called on Mr. Trump “to direct your team to redouble efforts to negotiate technical solutions to U.S. (and Russian) INF compliance concerns.”

Both letters also urged Mr. Trump to engage in negotiations with the Russians on prolonging the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which will expire in February 2021 unless both sides agree to an extension. That pact limits the number of long-range missiles, bombers and warheads in the American and Russian arsenals.

1.This Month

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Changing climate change“2040” paints an optimistic picture of the future of the environment

The film focuses on technological and agricultural solutions that are already being implemented to help combat climate change, The Economist Feb 19th 2019

by C.G. | BERLIN ……….In “2040”, a documentary which premiered at the Berlinale, Mr Gameau seeks to wrest hope from the bleak reports of climate change. He was inspired by Project Drawdown, the first comprehensive plan to reverse global warming, and the film is intended as a “virtual letter to his four-year-old daughter to show her an alternative future”. “Many films,” Mr Gameau thinks, are too dystopian, and “paint a future that is really hard to engage and to connect with”. “2040” acknowledges that the Earth has set off down a hazardous path, but focuses on the work that is being done now to steer the right course. What, the film asks, could make 2040 a time worth living in?…. (subscribers only) https://www.economist.com/prospero/2019/02/19/2040-paints-an-optimistic-picture-of-the-future-of-the-environment